


And Love is Lost Not From My Heart

by oppressa



Series: Kurt and Raven, Raven and Kurt (After Berlin) [3]
Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) - Fandom
Genre: 5 Times, Capture, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Okay Ending, Photographs, Sad and Happy, Smoking, Yearning, planned Experimentation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 14:08:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7055713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oppressa/pseuds/oppressa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Kurt wonders why Raven seems to care for him, and one time he finds out (under horrible circumstances I'm sorry)</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Love is Lost Not From My Heart

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know why it's my headcanon that Raven smokes or calls Kurt 'Crawler' most of the time, I just hope nobody minds too much is all.
> 
> Title by Skinny Puppy.

 

1.

They all look up to her at the mansion. Kurt realises that pride is a sin, still he is a little proud that he's the only one she came to get, in person, or the only one she brought here, as far as he knows. He doesn't think he's special to her, or anything. He just believes there's _something_ , some reason why she didn't leave him to fend for himself. He's come to the conclusion he reminds her of herself, when she was younger. But he doesn't know what her childhood was like. He doesn't know anything about her.

 

2.

She comes into the room when they're watching the new TV, him and Scott and Jubilee and Jean, and swats at him so she can sit down on the couch he had all to himself. He would have moved anyway, he just didn't think she'd want to be in here with them. With him.

“Hello again, Kurt.” She says, leaning over. Something about the way she says his name makes him want to sit up straighter, as well as hurl himself into her arms. She's been blue since the fight in Cairo. In Berlin, she'd looked just like any one of the people watching him, mocking him, cheering when he did what they wanted, but he didn't hesitate to put his faith in her.

“I heard you saved everybody on the jet.” She says, her voice drowned out to everyone except him as Scott has the sound up real loud. “Saved your friends. Is that true, mein kleiner Crawler?”

He grins, a bit too wide. She knows it's _Nightcrawler_. And she's talking to him. “Yes, it's true.”

She pushes his hair away from his face, holds it off his forehead. “It's a good thing you came with me, isn't it?”

He knows she doesn't like it, but he can't help it, he places his hand on top of the one in her lap. His looks massive in comparison. Mystique – Raven – his saviour – is human in her shape, at least.

She pulls away abruptly. That's how it works. She's allowed to touch him, but he's not allowed to touch her.

 

3.

The Sentinel falls on its back and he uses a rock from the rubble on the floor to smash its head in, and even once its gone still he can't stop. It wouldn't let him alone, wouldn't let him evade it, and he has this uncontrollable hatred bubbling up for some reason, for this thing that won't ever care. He sits on the body, trying to prise the casing off with his hands and his tail, even as it starts to disintegrate beneath him. The whole background is disappearing. The others must have won their fights too. He doesn't notice Mystique being behind him until she seizes him under the arms and tugs him up.

“Crawler, it's a simulation, okay? You don't have to keep on at it once it's down.” Then her fist thumps his heart. “But well done. You did good today.”

 

4.

He gets out of bed when he hears a car pulling up almost silently in the drive, and goes to the window he left open so he could hear such a thing. He watches Raven get out from the back in her most commonly used disguise and leather jacket. She pays the driver, waves them off, then lights a cigarette. She isn't supposed to smoke in the grounds.

Kurt climbs out the window and crawls down the wall, crouching on top of the lower roof by the entrance. She's already caught sight of him.

“Where were you?” He might as well risk the question.

She frowns at him. “That's none of your business, Kurt. Shouldn't you be asleep?”

“I'm sorry. I couldn't. I just didn't know if you were going to come back --”

“I was only gone for a week.” She pauses, fiddling with the cigarette. They're German-make, Kurt recognises the smell. It reminds him of the fighting ring. Raven can't read minds, but she notices him looking at it, and throws it away. “You like it better when I'm around, huh?”

“Ja,” He scratches his neck uncomfortably. “Vielleicht.”

She nods and lifts her bag over her shoulder. “Well, I'm going to speak to Professor Xavier. What about you, you going to hang out here all night?”

He shakes his head, and starts to clamber back up. When he looks out from the window again, she's gone, like she was a dream.

 

5.

“You still have those pictures, Kurt?” She asks.

The ones that were going to go on his papers to God knows where. Yes, he still has them. He put them in the pocket of the overcoat he still has, too.

“You want them back?” He guesses. “You paid for them, anyway.”

“If you give me one, perhaps, I might stand a chance of getting the money out of Caliban one day. He always remembers a face.”

Anything. He tears one off for her upstairs and gives it to her that evening, when she passes him again.

“Thank you.” She says, and the corner of her mouth lifts as she studies it. “You know, you should keep hold of the other side. They're very nice.”

 

\+ 1.

He's stretched on a table. Electrified walls around him interfering with his powers again. Wires clipped onto his fingers and his feet. He can't really see until somebody helpfully angles the light away from his eyes.

“You caused me quite a set back at the facility.” Stryker says. “I know you weren't the only one, but let's just say I've got an old score to settle, and you're gonna help me with that.”

Kurt doesn't squirm, at least, he tries so hard not to. He looks around the room, stopping at her picture on the wall. Raven's photograph. And there are other black and white photographs, of various mutated body parts. Bodies like his. The man above him watches him take them all in.

When Stryker tells him his genes are so _interesting_ , something lets loose in him, and he screams into the Colonel's face. _You bastard. She'll kill you._ He doesn't even know what else.

Stryker smiles. He must be used to this. Kurt thinks about the man who he had turned into an animal. He pats one of Kurt's legs, and leaves him to cry about it.

 

“Wake up!” Someone's unstrapping him, lifting his back off the table. “I disabled the power, Crawler, you have to take us somewhere!”

He clutches them instinctively, still trailing wires, and they're gone, the shouts of soldiers trying to break down the door ringing in his ears. He realises he took them back to Alkali lake just before he collapses in the snow. Raven's cradling him, and he understands, finally. This is the only way she can say it.

“Do you hate me?” She asks.

He shakes his head. “No, of course not.”

She shakes hers. “I don't know how you turned out like this.”

He shrugs. “Do we have to go back straight away?”

“Well...” She lets him sit up, brushing herself off. “You want to stay out here?”

“We could make a fire, in the forest. You could tell me some things...”

He trails off. Maybe not. But then she takes his hand.

“Okay.”

 


End file.
